Soviet-Style Disproportion

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

In his State of the Union speech last month, Barack Obama warned that America is becoming “a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.”

The United States has gone from being a comparatively egalitarian society to one of the most unequal democracies in the world. The richest fifth of the population controls about 85 per cent of the country’s wealth.

Income inequality stands at its highest rate since the Great Depression. Chief executives now make roughly 200 to 300 times as much as their average employees’ salary.

The incomes of most Americans began to flatten or decline after 1980 -- they now enjoy less economic mobility than their counterparts in Canada and much of Western Europe.

The economic meltdown since 2007 has created further damage, asserts the well-regarded Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz. “Unemployed young people are alienated. It will be harder and harder to get some large proportion of them onto a productive track. They will be scarred for life by what is happening today,” he wrote last December in a Vanity Fair article.

But the problem is not simply that a small number of people are very rich or pay less than their fair share of taxes. It also lies in the way many of them got rich.

They are all too often bankers, hedge fund managers, and Wall Street traders who manipulate immense sums of money for their own benefit, and give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses – regardless of whether their activities actually benefit the economy as a whole.

Very often it’s actually the reverse, as companies are downsized, manufacturing jobs outsourced to other countries, workers laid off, and homes foreclosed.

Yet financiers and corporate leaders have managed to grab more and more of the country’s income for themselves -- even when their corporation’s performance has been disappointing.

These are not the “captains of industry” of yesteryear.

The political class has also done well for itself. Roughly 11 per cent of members of Congress have a net worth of more than $9 million, according to an analysis of 2010 financial disclosures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That puts these politicians in the top one per cent of Americans in terms of wealth.

Has America developed a Soviet-style “nomenklatura,” an elite that appropriates a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth, by virtue of its position in society? After all, many of these people don’t “make” (as in produce) anything, they just make money.

In the Soviet Union, while the economy stagnated, the Communist party elite enjoyed a standard of living far greater than that of ordinary Russians. The system provided them with ample high quality goods, while those less privileged might wait months or years for basic necessities.

And when the Soviet command economy finally collapsed, and people could buy state-owned industries and property, it was these privileged Communist apparatchiks, with strong connections to Soviet power structures and access to the monetary funds, who snapped them up at bargain-basement prices, becoming a class of ultra-rich oligarchs.

Is America, with its growing gap between the privileged few and a declining middle and working class, beginning to resemble the Soviet Union after the 1970s?

"Mister One Per Cent" Loses South Carolina Primary

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Newt Gingrich came from behind to beat Mitt Romney handily in the Republican South Carolina primary last week.

Romney is a casualty of the ‘Occupy' movement, which has highlighted the growing gap between rich and poor in America - the so-called "99 per cent" of the population versus the ultra-rich "one per cent."

Romney has played into the hands of populists with flat-footed statements that demonstrate how out of touch he is in a country where millions are unemployed or having their homes foreclosed.

When asked during the primary contest about his income, this was his answer:

"For the past 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income or earned annual income," he responded. "Then, I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much."

Not very much? From February 2010 to February 2011, Romney earned $374,327.62 in speaking fees - 10 times what an average worker in South Carolina makes in a year.

But even that is small potatoes. His fortune of about $250 million comes from his time as a "venture capitalist" with Bain Capital.

Romney has now released tax returns indicating that he and his wife, Ann, paid a tax rate of 13.9 per cent in 2010. He is among the top one per cent of taxpayers.

Romney's tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans, who may pay as high as 35 per cent, because most of his income flows from capital gains on investments. His holdings include an undisclosed amount in funds based in the Grand Cayman Islands, although his aides say he never used the location as a tax haven.

Romney wasn't a "capitalist" in the classical sense of the term - someone like Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, a businessman who founds a successful manufacturing company.

Following graduation from Harvard with law and business degrees, Romney joined Bain & Co., a global management consulting firm in Boston.

He then co-founded, with rich friends, the spin-off company Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable by taking over companies and downsizing them in order to make greater profits. This often involved laying off workers, of course.

In other words, Romney simply got friends to pool money in order to buy (and in many cases destroy) companies. He's a child of privilege - how many readers of this article could get rich by first having access to millions of dollars?

Romney has defended Bain's practices by referring to the theory, first popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, of "creative destruction." But Romney deliberately misinterprets the term.

Destroying firms to enrich investors isn't what Schumpeter meant by creative destruction. It refers to the fact that innovative or improved technologies, which create new products, can lead to the demise of firms producing things no longer in demand. They change the capitalist playing field.

When Xerox invented the photocopier, it was the end of the road for producers of carbon paper. The word processor finished off typewriters. And thanks to the digital camera, which doesn't require film, Eastman Kodak has just filed for bankruptcy.

Texas governor Rick Perry (of all people) called what Romney did "vulture capitalism." Even if Romney wins the nomination, given today's economic climate, there's little chance he can become president of the United States.

Can Romney Win the Presidency?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This coming Saturday, South Carolina will hold its Republican Party primary. The candidates include Mitt Romney, who was victorious in Iowa and New Hampshire; Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, two social conservative Christians, and the more secular Newt Gingrich.

Last week, more than 100 evangelical Christian conservatives gathered in Texas and voted overwhelmingly to rally behind Santorum, to create a united front against Romney. Their problem? Romney's Mormon faith.

Romney is a sixth-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as the denomination founded in the 19th century by Joseph Smith is officially known.

Mormons consider themselves Christians. However, the theological differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity are so fundamental, experts say, that they encompass the very understanding of God and Jesus, what counts as Scripture, and what happens when people die.

The Mormon Church maintains that in the early 1800s, its first prophet, Joseph Smith, had revelations that restored Christianity to its true path. He bequeathed to his church volumes of revelations, including the sacred Book of Mormon, which includes an appearance by Jesus in the Americas shortly after his resurrection.

But no other Christian denomination has ever accepted divine revelations that go beyond the two Biblical testaments. After all, Muslims, too, recognize the entire Christian and Jewish Bible as divinely inspired, but also consider the Quran to be the final word of God as revealed to the prophet Muhammad.

Persecuted by other Americans - Smith himself was lynched by a mob in 1844 - the Mormons trekked across the American Great Plains under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847, and created their own "Zion" by the Great Salt Lake in today's Utah (then still Mexican territory).

Romney's mother comes from Utah, but his father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. He is descended from Mormons who came to the Chihuahua desert in 1885 seeking refuge from American anti-polygamy laws.

Polygamy continued in the Mexican colonies after church elders officially banned it in the U.S. in 1890. It was the only way Utah was able to attain statehood six years later.

When it comes to the matter of his faith, Romney's time as a young missionary during his two and a half years in France was apparently pivotal. In a new book, "The Real Romney," Boston Globe journalists Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write that, "Having begun his mission with what he called thin ties to the faith, he became a stalwart believer."

In South Carolina, where about 60 per cent of Republican voters are evangelical Christian Protestants, Romney, a former bishop in the church, faces an electorate that, in many cases, considers Romney's faith apostasy.

It's possible that Romney will overcome this and other hurdles and become the Republican nominee in next November's presidential election. But unless the U.S. economy is at that time in a deep depression, he will lose to President Obama.

Secular people who don't care about any of this are more likely to be Democrats anyhow, whereas the evangelical backbone of much of the Republican Party will, in large numbers, find Romney's faith too hard to ignore.

They won't vote for Obama either, but they'll stay home in large numbers. (Of course African-American evangelicals will vote for Obama.)

In a sense, for many voters, bigotry (objecting to Romney due to his religion) will trump racism (opposing Obama because he is African-American) when they go to the polls.

To Name is to Claim

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

People of a certain age might remember the rather silly song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” first recorded by the Four Lads in 1953. One verse goes like this:

    Istanbul was Constantinople
    Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
    Been a long time gone, Constantinople
    Why did Constantinople get the works?
    That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

The city of Constantinople, situated between the Black and Mediterranean seas, had been the capital of the Greek Byzantine Empire for more than a thousand years, and is still the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who were Muslims, in 1453. They would rename it Istanbul and it became the capital of their vast empire.

And despite what the song lyrics say, it may still also be part of the Greeks’ “business.” Peoples have long memories.

The song by the way, also noted that New Amsterdam became New York. That name change occurred in 1664, when the British ousted the Dutch from their colony.

To name, or rename, is to demonstrate hegemony and possession. Such changes have occurred throughout history. The biblical Canaan, for instance, became the land of Israel, which in later centuries was called, by succeeding rulers, Palestine. Part of it is again the modern state of Israel.

Some name changes are the result of decolonization, especially in Africa. The British colony of Gold Coast became Ghana, the name of an ancient empire, when it acquired independence in 1957.  Mali, the former French Sudan, was also named for an ancient empire, three years later.

Rhodesia, created by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, would clearly have to alter its name upon independence: It became Zimbabwe in 1980, and its capital, Salisbury, became Harare.

In the Congo, Belgian place names were also replaced after 1960. The capital, Leopoldville, named for King Leopold II, became Kinshasa -- and none too soon. Leopold’s harsh regime in the Congo between 1885 and 1908 had been directly or indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people.

In Europe, name changes have often reflected territorial or ideological transformations.

After World War II, when Poland acquired former German territory, the cities of Danzig and Breslau became, respectively, Gdan'sk and Wroc?aw. The Italian city of Fiume, ceded to Yugoslavia, was renamed Rijeka. It is now part of Croatia.

In Canada, the former Berlin, in southwestern Ontario, became Kitchener during World War I. There were similar anti-German name changes elsewhere in Canada and the United States.

Marxist ideology in the new Soviet Union created after the Russian Revolution resulted in many changes, as cities were renamed for Communist heroes: St. Petersburg became Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod became Gorky, Yekaterinburg was called Sverdlovsk, Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad, and so on.

Ironically, in most cases, the post-Soviet Russian Federation has restored the old tsarist names, though Stalingrad is now Volgograd. For obvious reasons, the Russians have kept the name Kaliningrad, named after a Soviet president, for the Prussian city of Königsberg, captured from the Germans in World War II and annexed to the Soviet Union.

In the former Communist East Germany, the city known from 1953 to 1990 as Karl-Marx-Stadt is once again Chemnitz.  However, in Communist Vietnam, the old Saigon is still Ho Chi Minh City.

Even a different way of spelling the same word can indicate a change of status. The city of Montreal, when spelled with an e-acute, as Montréal, changes the sound of the word from “Munt-reeyol” to “Mon-reyal.” This also reflects shifts in political power in Quebec.

Prince Edward Island has had – and maybe still has? – at least three names. To the Mi’kmaq nation it is Abegweit or Epekwitk; when it was ruled by France, it was called Île Saint-Jean; and the British named it for Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a son of King George III, in 1798.

To name is to claim.
       

Four Divided Cities, Then and Now

Henry Srebnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Four major cities were divided due to war in the 20^th century. Two are completely reunited, one may someday again face partition, and one remains split in two.

At the end of World War II, Germany and Austria were each divided into four occupation zones controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union.

The capitals of Berlin and Vienna were also split into four sectors, though each city was within that country’s Soviet zone.

The American, British, and French zones soon united as West Berlin, while East Berlin became the capital of Communist East Germany.

At first, the border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin remained open, but in August 1961 the Communists built the infamous Berlin Wall, to prevent people escaping the east.

Checkpoint Charlie was the name given to the best-known crossing point and became a symbol of the separation of east and west.

The number of people who died trying to cross the wall during its 29 year existence was well above 200.

The wall was finally opened in November 1989. East and West Berlin were merged one year later with German reunification.

The four-power occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin: the central area of the city constituted an international zone in which the four powers alternated control on a monthly basis.

During the 10 years of the four-power occupation, Vienna became a hot-bed for international espionage between the Western and Eastern blocs.The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the  Austrian State Treaty was signed in 1955, when Austria regained full sovereignty and the city was reunited.

The 1947 United Nations resolution to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state stipulated the establishment of Jerusalem as a third, internationally administered, separate political body. It was to be a corpus separatum, under a UN‑appointed Governor.

But this never happened. When Israel declared its independence, on May 15, 1948, warfare with its Arab neighbours ensued. While the Jordanian attempt to take West Jerusalem failed, the Arab Legion held on to East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City, which includes the Temple Mount, with the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock; the Western Wall of the Second Jewish Temple; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A no-man's land between East and West Jerusalem came into being in November 1948. Barbed wire and concrete barriers ran down the center of the city, and a crossing point was established at the Mandelbaum Gate.

In 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, Israel captured East Jerusalem, along with the entire West Bank. East Jerusalem was subsequently annexed.

But Jerusalem remains a deeply divided city of two thoroughly antagonistic and mutually hostile communities who hardly set foot in each other's areas, who hardly communicate with each other, and who live very separate lives, mentally and culturally divided. 

However, a repartition of Jerusalem that would involve a return to the 1967 armistice lines would be difficult, as it would necessitate the eviction of some 200,000 Jewish residents of East Jerusalem from their homes.

An alternative to a territorial partition might be a partition of sovereignty, with an open city, so that the existing Arab populated parts of the city would be part of Palestine, and the existing Jewish populated parts of the city would be under Israeli sovereignty. Another version of this “condominium” solution might involve a form of joint sovereignty only over the Old City.

After all, the Jewish and Muslim holy sites (the Western Wall and the Temple Mount) are conjoined, nor can they be surgically separated. In any case, as the Israeli writer Avishai Margalit has asked, how does one divide a symbol?

Nicosia (Lefkosia in Turkish), the largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center, is the only divided capital in the world.

The southern section is the capital and seat of government of the Greek-run Republic of Cyprus. The northern part functions as the capital of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkish troops occupied northern Nicosia (as well as the northern part of Cyprus). A buffer zone, the Green Line, controlled by UN peacekeepers, was established across the island to separate the northern Turkish controlled part of the island from the Greek south.

After many failed attempts on reaching agreement between the two communities, the barrier at Ledra Street was re-opened in April 2008. It became the sixth crossing point between the southern and northern parts of Cyprus.

But the island remains partitioned and with no prospects of political union in the offing, so does Nicosia.

Questioning Civic and Ethnic Nationalism

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Political thinkers over the past two centuries have grappled with the question of what constitutes a nation, and who belongs – or doesn’t belong – to it.

Civic or territorial nationalists define the nation as an association of people with equal and shared political rights, and an allegiance to similar political procedures. The nation is a political entity, inclusive and liberal. Anyone can, so to speak, join through becoming a citizen.

Ethnic nationalists define the nation in terms of a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, faith, and ancestry. They base membership on descent or heredity. It is clearly a more restrictive form of nationalism.

Let’s use one illustration to d

emonstrate the confusion that can occur when we try to pigeonhole people based on their differing identities.

We’ll take three families: the Rahmans are Muslim Bengalis from Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan. The Barkatis are Muslim Bengalis, but from the Indian state of West Bengal and therefore citizens of India. The Banerjees, who are Hindus, are also West Bengalis from India.

All three families move to Glasgow, Scotland. While it does have its own assembly and legal system, Scotland is not a sovereign state, but a devolved part of the United Kingdom.

Are the three families now Scots? In terms of ethnicity, no. But for civic or territorial nationalists, the answer is yes, they are Scottish. But are they then Indo-Scots, Bengali Scots, or, in the case of the Rahmans, Bangladeshi Scots?

Or, for that matter, since Scotland remains part of the British state, are they – at least once they acquire citizenship – simply British, thereby bypassing the tricky business of whether they are Scottish or not? That would work for some.

However, since Scottish ethno-nationalists, especially those who wish to create an independent Scotland, see the inhabitants of Great Britain as English, Scottish, and Welsh, the term British means little to them. It is merely a matter of legal citizenship.

So if nationalists were victorious and Scotland became a sovereign country, would the three families now be defined as Scottish, given that they are already UK citizens living in Glasgow?

For civic and territorial nationalists, the answer would be yes. But for some Scottish ethnic nationalists, the families would still not be Scots, even though citizens of a new Scotland -- though perhaps through assimilation, their descendants might become Scottish. (Racists, an extreme subgroup of ethnic nationalists, would deny that they could ever be Scots.)

What of the reverse? If the MacGregor family, ethnically Scottish, decide to leave Glasgow and move to London, would they cease being Scots? Not to ethnic nationalists, they wouldn’t – they’d become part of a Scottish diaspora.

Yet should the United Kingdom dissolve, and England, like Scotland, become – as it was for centuries – a country on its own, the MacGregors would become citizens of England.

And then perhaps they would become “Scots English” in terms of ethnic identity, despite the oxymoronic sound of that definition.

Is it a wonder these issues are never resolved?

Political Culture More Important Than Formal Structures

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian       

Rio de Janeiro and Charlottetown both have traffic lights at major intersections. However, in Rio there are often police officers at the intersections as well, something Charlottetown manages without.

Why? Because otherwise - as I noticed when I was in Brazil years ago -- many drivers in Rio would, after looking to see no oncoming traffic on the cross street, continue driving right through the intersection.

In Charlottetown, not many people would do that, even in the dead of night and with no traffic on either the cross street or on the one on which they were travelling.

It all boils down to culture, and driving habits are a part of culture, of course.

People's attitudes and values regarding their political system are what we term political culture.

It's often the most volatile countries, ones with little sense of overarching national consciousness or a democratic political culture, that have the most stringent rules and regulations on the books.

Their political structures usually include intricate power-sharing arrangements between identifiable ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities or rival regions, including broad governing coalitions.

Their electoral procedures are designed to be as ‘fair' and ‘inclusive' as possible, through the crafting of complex formulas, such as the alternative vote, single-transferable vote, two-round runoff, proportional representation, and mixed-member-proportional systems.

This ensures that most political parties on the ballot - and there are always many -- gain seats in their legislatures, allowing disparate groups a voice in governance.

Some countries also reserve places or implement quotas for women, minorities, and even occupational and social groups in their parliaments.

They may also allow communities a large measure of control over culture and education.

On the other hand, some countries that are troubled by very deep political divisions only sanction parties that have a ‘national' character.

Such parties must demonstrate support in more than a few regions in order to run in national elections. Groups that are overtly the vehicles of particular sub-national entities are banned as being "divisive" and a danger to the unity of the state.

Yet despite their elaborate constitutional architecture and political safeguards, many of these countries still dissolve into civil strife or end up governed by brutal authoritarian regimes.

This happens because they are, typically, artificial states within whose borders live peoples who may be historic enemies or, at the least, have no interest in inhabiting the same polity with their fellow citizens. Patriotism and loyalty towards the nation, in such places, is clearly in short supply.

These unstable countries sometimes implode altogether and become failed states. And all their fancy structural designs do not save them.

In old and consolidated democracies such as Canada, we manage to muddle along with a patently ‘unfair' first-past-the-post winner-take-all system for electing MPs.

This usually allows a party to win a majority in the House of Commons with only a plurality of the vote. Even when a party fails to do so, we frown upon coalition government.

We also permit an openly separatist party like the Bloc Québécois to run in federal elections. And we tolerate an unelected senate.

Why are we not more incensed about this? Because we have a democratic political culture and don't think the country is in danger of falling apart or becoming a dictatorship.

Does this make us less ‘democratic'? Of course not. How many Canadians would prefer to live in some of the countries I've described, entities such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, Nepal or Uganda?

What counts is the underlying political culture, something that can't simply be constructed through clever political engineering.

Canada is not as polarized, nor suffers from the same kind of political violence, as do many of these other countries.

We trust our politicians not to cross certain lines, such as fixing elections, bribing voters, jailing opponents, revoking civil liberties, or using the military to suppress dissent.

Our governments don't have the same level of control over our day-to-day lives. An independent judiciary serves as a check on their actions. So elections, for us, are not a matter of life and death, as is - literally - the case in other places. We can therefore afford to be more nonchalant about our democratic shortcomings.

It's like legislation concerning alcohol: the strict regulation of liquor (or its outright prohibition) is a society's response to rampant alcoholism. In places where this is not a major issue, laws regulating the sale and consumption of spirits are less stringent, because less necessary.

The same holds true for a country's political system. Where democracy already exists, there's less zeal to create a "perfect" version of it among the citizenry.   

Palestinians Are a Nation

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Speaking to an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington recently, Newt Gingrich, now the front-runner in the race to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States, declared the Palestinians are an “invented” people.

He later elaborated on his remarks. “Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire,” Gingrich told a television interviewer. “We’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community.”

For this he has been criticized by the Arab League, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and even Republican opponents Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. He has been especially denounced by people on the left, who see in his remarks a “hard line” pro-Israel position.

Actually, anti-Zionists do the same thing, insisting that Jews are simply members of a religion and are not an ethnic group, and hence have no right to part of Palestine. Indeed, an Israeli academic, Shlomo Sand, recently published a controversial book entitled “The Invention of the Jewish People.”

The whole thing is somewhat ironic, given that the critics don’t seem to know that left-wing theoreticians like the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn claim that all nations are “constructed” by clever elites and are thus “inventions.”

Back when Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel, she famously said that there are no such people as the Palestinians. She meant that until the 1960s they had no separate consciousness as “Palestinians” (a simple geographic term, and a fuzzy one, at that).

They were called “Arabs” when they revolted against British rule in the Palestine Mandate in 1936-39 and when the 1947 partition plan, which called for “Arab” and “Jewish” states, was passed by the UN.

It was the “Arab Higher Committee,” led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, which opposed the creation of Israel by the Jews (who of course weren't yet “Israelis,” either).

Prior to 1948, Jews used the term Palestinian more than the Arabs did. The Jerusalem Post newspaper used to be called the Palestine Post. And during the Second World War, more than 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine were organized into three battalions of the Palestine Regiment.

But never mind all that. People who say they’re a nation are one, it’s that simple. They define themselves, and don’t get defined by others. So of course the Palestinians are now a nation. Like every other nation, they have, so to speak, invented themselves – just the way Americans, Canadians, and others did before them.

Whether invented or not, there are now two nations within the old Palestine Mandate – Israelis and Palestinians. Each should have a state.

Arguing for Real Gender Equality

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Our society is obsessed by numbers. Statistics hold us spellbound. Everything is reduced to percentages, sometimes to the exclusion of more meaningful measures. But figures can mislead, especially in politics.

For instance, statistics regarding the composition of assemblies by gender in themselves tell us little about democracy or the empowerment of women.

In our own 2011 federal election, 25 per cent of the seats were won by women. That number has, in fact, been increasing, and that’s good.

But in Ecuador the National Assembly, after their 2009 election, included 40 women out of 124 members, 32 per cent, thanks to gender quotas.

In the recent balloting in Tunisia, won by an Islamic party, women took 29 per cent of the seats, again, because of a quota system.

And in Rwanda, the election of 2008 saw 45 of 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies occupied by women, a full 56 per cent – because 24 women, two from each province and from the city of Kigali, were elected on women-only ballots.

Yet who would honestly say that women are better off in those less fortunate and less democratic countries than here?

Former Communist states also made sure that women were well represented in their parliaments. Why not? It’s not as if the women could wrest power from the Communist apparatchiks – almost all men – who actually ran the state.

In fact, many of the women legislators in today’s sham democracies are mere pawns, their names placed on proportional representation lists to do the bidding of the male “bosses” who run the political parties and to make the countries these men govern “look good” to the outside world.

These women haven’t really been elected as individuals in their own right. And the parliaments in which they sit, in any case, exercise little power.

It’s more façade than reality, often propagandistic and superficial window dressing.

We may have fewer women in our Canadian legislatures, but we know that they have actually been selected to run for office in a party’s open nomination meeting and have then won a competitive race within their riding.

They can exercise the same degree of power, and represent their constituents just as competently, as any of their male colleagues.

And as time moves on and prejudices lessen, women will indeed reach gender parity – for real.

Is the Middle East Edging Towards War?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Current events in the Middle East don’t give us much hope that democracy is the new zeitgeist in the region.

Early results from the first round of the ongoing Egyptian parliamentary election indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is winning about 40 per cent of the vote.

Founded in 1928, the Brotherhood is the largest Islamic party in the Middle East, with branches and allies in many countries (including Hamas in Gaza). It was officially banned in Egypt until the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.

And the Al-Nour Party, organized by ultra-conservative Islamists called Salafis, who are more extreme than the Brotherhood, appears to be gaining a further 25 per cent of the ballots cast.

These figures might even increase, because the results now tabulated came from the more liberal urban areas, including Cairo itself and Port Said. The second and third stages of voting will take place in more conservative rural areas in the coming months.

Should these numbers hold, the two groups might control at least 65 percent of the parliamentary seats, enough to gain power – should the Egyptian army permit it. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces remains the ultimate power in the land.

“It means that, if the Brotherhood chooses, Parliament can be an Islamists affair -- a debate between liberal Islamists, moderate Islamists and conservatives Islamists, and that is it,” Michael Wahid Hanna, an Egyptian-born researcher at the Century Foundation in Cairo, told the New York Times.

This is a worry for Israel, since the Islamists in Egypt have always opposed the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and would like to abrogate it. An Israeli official acknowledged concerns: “Obviously, it is hard to see in this result good news for Israel.”

Israel has begun building a fence along its long border with Egypt along the Sinai Peninsula desert. It fears that radical Islamic groups will use the Sinai for attacks on Israel.

Also, maintains Geneive Abdo, author of No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam, no matter which party picks up the most seats in parliament, the new Egypt will be less compliant to American demands and cultivate warmer relations with Iran.

Islamic parties calling themselves moderates have now formed governments in Tunisia and Morocco and will no doubt play a role in Libya as well, with the mercurial Muammar Gadhafi gone. The Libyan dictator was clearly a sociopath, but not particularly devout.

Meanwhile, Iran has been covertly developing nuclear weapons. A Nov. 8 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency was a wake-up call, even for those who have refused to see the danger. The report noted that “Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities” and is also working to develop long-range missiles.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, asserted recently that Iran has enough material for four or five nuclear bombs; all that is required is a decision to proceed.

The Islamic Republic proceeds from strength to strength, thumbing its nose at western sanctions. Two months ago the Iranians were accused of hatching a brazen plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

And last week the British Embassy compound in Tehran was trashed by a mob of militants, mostly members of Iran’s paramilitary Basiji brigades loyal to Iran’s ruling clerics.

Britain’s ambassador to Iran, Dominick Chilcott, described it as a mix of “mindless vandalism” and “sinister targeted theft.”

British historian Michael Burleigh, author of Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism, has stated that “Unless the international community acts in concert to neutralise this danger, there will sooner or later be an Israeli strike to frustrate Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. If that happened, the world really would be in a new dark age.”

Israel must feel as if the noose is tightening around its neck and wonders whether its only real major ally, the United States, would be willing to defend it, should war break out.

U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta recently asserted that Israel is partly responsible for its increasing isolation and that it now must take diplomatic “bold action” to mend ties with its Arab neighbours and come to a settlement with the Palestinians. It is understood that Panetta’s comments are widely shared by U.S. officials.

“Stuck in the Middle With You” was a rock song released by Stealers Wheel in 1972. The refrain went like this:

“Clowns to the left of me,

Jokers to the right, here I am,

Stuck in the middle with you.”

Today’s Israeli version might sound like this:

Egypt to the left of me,

Iran to the right, here I am

 Stuck in the middle with USA.

A Student Newspaper Best Indicator of Intellectual Vibrancy on Campus

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

There are many ways to gauge the excellence of a university, and ranking them has become a major growth industry. But my favourite is one that seems never to be used as an indicator: the excellence of the student newspaper.

I write as someone who has over the years become familiar with many student publications. I obtained degrees from universities in Britain, Canada and the United States, and I taught at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, a liberal arts school, and the University of Calgary, a big research institution, before coming to the University of Prince Edward Island.

A friend who lives in Montreal has been sending me copies of the McGill Daily, McGill University's main student paper. (There is more than one.)

And in reading the wide variety of news articles and opinion pieces, as well as the in-depth coverage of the arts and sciences, I find that the paper is, professionally and intellectually, the equal of any college paper - or, for that matter, most daily newspapers. (Full disclosure: four decades ago, I was a student at McGill and also a contributor to the Daily.)

The Daily has a storied history: this year marks the centenary of its founding, and through the decades many famous names have appeared on its masthead and in its by-lines. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was in the forefront of student activism and radical politics. That tradition continues: it is still far to the left of most Canadian newspapers, including those published at universities.

If the Daily is a reflection of McGill's student body, then the university remains a vibrant academic institution, where "critical thinking" is a reality and not merely a PR platitude.

And this relates to my main point: Naturally, McGill and similar world-class universities have a more outstanding faculty than a smaller school such as UPEI - though I can think of some professors here who would not be out of place teaching there.

But the real difference probably lies in the student body itself. At UPEI, we have many excellent, even outstanding, students, but not the same "critical mass" found at larger places like McGill. And so we do not have the same climate of intellectual inquiry.

Much of real learning goes on outside the classroom, in lounges, the union, the library, and elsewhere, places where students interact, issues are debated, and heated arguments may ensue about matters that are not just "on the exam" or related to grades.

Of course, it helps that students at McGill, the University of Toronto, and similar big-city Canadian schools are exposed to more in the way of culture than those studying in smaller towns.

Obviously, Charlottetown can never match that.

In the U.S., many large universities are located in college towns which serve the same function: they provide the cultural and political milieu of an urban centre without, so to speak, the rest of the city.

So it's unfair to compare a small school like UPEI - which in any case has offsetting advantages, such as smaller classroom sizes and better faculty-student ratios - to big research universities.

But it never hurts to aim higher. And we are indeed doing just that.

What’s to Become of Mideast’s Christians?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside. PEI] Journal-Pioneer

The Arab awaking has been, at best, a mixed blessing for the Middle East’s Christian Arab minorities. The uprisings in Libya and Tunisia have had little impact on the region’s Christians, as these two countries are almost entirely Sunni Muslim in religion.

But Egypt and Syria are a different story. The fall of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, and the ongoing rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, the authoritarian president of Syria, has exposed these minorities to violence and persecution by extremists.

The upheavals have prompted concerns that regimes that were seen as guarantors of Arab Christian survival, whatever their other faults, may be replaced by ideological Islamists.

In fact, Christian Arabs have been leaving the Middle East for decades, fearing the growth of fundamentalist Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is estimated that about half of Iraq’s 1.4-million Christians have fled the country since the American invasion in 2003, and even in Lebanon, which once had a Christian majority, the 1.7-million Christians are now only about one third of the country’s population.

They are now a negligible presence in the Palestinian territories – even in places such as Bethlehem. In Israel some two per cent of Arab citizens are Christian. And in Jordan Christians comprise about three per cent of the population.

Egypt has some 10-million Christians, the largest remaining non-Muslim population in the Middle East by far. The ancient Coptic Orthodox Church is the main Christian denomination in Egypt, led by Pope Shenouda III. They represent more than 10 per cent of the total population.

Mubarak allowed them religious freedoms and punished Islamists who persecuted them. That protection is now gone.

A car bomb exploded in front of a Coptic Church in Alexandria last New Year’s Eve, killing 23 people and injuring at least 79. There was further sectarian violence in the country between Christians and Muslims in March and April.

The destruction at a Coptic church in southern Egypt on Sept. 30 further heightened tensions. When liberal Muslims joined Coptic Christians as they marched through Cairo’s Maspero area on Oct. 9 in protest, they were attacked.

Egyptian security forces then rammed their armed vehicles into the crowd and fired live ammunition indiscriminately. At least 36 people were killed and 272 injured.

The first stage of staggered parliamentary elections will begin on Nov. 28 amidst continuing turmoil and many Copts fear a strong showing by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Given these conditions, large numbers are leaving the country. “If emigration of Christians continues at the present rate,” said Naguib Gabriel, director of the Cairo-based Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations, “it may reach 250,000 by the end of 2011.”

Syria’s Christian population, once more than 30 per cent of the country’s total, is now down to 10 per cent. The 2.5-million Christians in Syria belong to various eastern rite Orthodox, Catholic and Assyrian churches.

The Assad regime in Syria is dominated by the Alawite minority, itself just 10 percent of the population. They came to political power in the 1960s by dominating the army and the Ba’ath Party.

A Shi’a sect, they are viewed by many Sunni Arabs – who are the vast majority of Syrians -- as heretics.

Many Christians fear that Assad’s downfall would deprive them of the semblance of protection the Assad family has provided for four decades. (Bashar’s father Hafez ruled the country from 1970 until 2000.) They might be subjected to reprisals at the hands of a conservative Sunni leadership that has long been out of power.

The Damascus regime has claimed that it is being challenged by Islamic radicals. The demonstrators deny that, but many Christians appear to believe it.

Hence there have been interventions from bishops and priests, Orthodox and Catholic, on behalf of the government. As the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Mario Zenari recently stated, Syria has been a country that has been “exemplary in terms of harmony between different religious confessions, for mutual respect between the Muslim majority and Christian minority.”

But the Assad regime is probably living on borrowed time. Syria has already been suspended from the 22-member Arab League. Its only Middle Eastern ally is fellow Shi’a Iran, while most Sunnis in the region, including the Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, and non-Arab Turks, would shed few tears if it disappeared.

As Syria edges ever closer to civil war, Christians could well find themselves on the losing side. And should the regime fall, Syria might witness a bloodbath far worse than what we saw in Libya.

Reflections on the Demise of the So-Called "King of Kings"


Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

There has been no end of commentary about Moammar Gadhafi's bizarre reign of chaos and terror in Libya.

His grisly death at the hands of fighters from the city of Misrata, which had suffered so grievously during the long civil war that finally led to his ouster, was captured by video cameras and broadcast around the world.

The essence of his rule was one almost unique for a 20th-21st-century ruler. The so-called ‘King of Kings' was truly an absolute monarch, a modern-day Egyptian pharaoh or Roman emperor.

Monsters such as Hitler, Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Saddam Hussein, and Stalin were, after all, to some extent bound by their own ideological formulations and political parties.

Saudi kings, even when absolute rulers, must govern within the strictures of Wahabi Islam.

But Gadhafi was literally able to do whatever he felt like doing; he was, after all, his own creation, a deity, and not beholden to any ideologues, dead or alive.

His "Green Book," a treatise that spelled out his "third universal theory" that would supplant both capitalism and communism - could it have been just an elaborate cruel joke, mocking his own people? - allowed him, in effect, to crown himself a philosopher-king. No popes or ayatollahs or caliphs stood in his way.

His idiosyncrasies were legendary and his every whim carried out: at one point he had decided that camels on roads near Tripoli made the city look "backward." They were immediately shot by his compliant military.

For all his buffoonery and comic-opera outfits, Gadhafi was a brutal tyrant, ordering the deaths of people at home and abroad with absolutely no qualms. He was a sociopath without a conscience.

And his family used the country's oil wealth to live in untold luxury. Libyans visiting their various compounds since Gadhafi's downfall have come away astounded by the affluence. The humble Bedouin persona Gadhafi affected was nothing but a pose.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Lord Acton's warning remains as relevant today as it did when he expressed it in 1887.

Gadhafi left behind no institutions, not even the kind other dictatorships have allowed, such as tame parliaments, compliant political cabinets, or political parties that had been hollowed out. Libya is starting from scratch. It is a political as well as a physical desert.

Still Trying to Figure out why Quebec Chose the NDP

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer 
 
Almost six months after last May’s federal election, I’m still trying to figure out why the francophones of Quebec, en masse, suddenly switched from the Bloc Quebecois to the New Democratic Party, in the process decimating the former.

It had nothing to do with the NDP itself, or its charismatic standard-bearer, Jack Layton. It wasn’t as if the NDP had a new leader Quebecois could suddenly relate to.

After all, Layton had already fought two previous elections, in 2004 and 2006, as head of the party, and had not a single measly seat in the province to show for his efforts. (Thomas Mulcair, the only NDP member from Quebec before 2011, was elected MP for Outremont in a by-election in 2007.)

The NDP had no base in Quebec – they had virtually no party members nor any historic support in the province. The party had in its entire existence, in fact, elected only two Quebec MPs. Insofar as it had any loyalists at all, it was in anglophone parts of Montreal.

Nor was the “Orange Crush” due to the quality of the local NDP candidates, most of whom were unknowns or sacrificial lambs who had little presence in their ridings – one was in Las Vegas during the campaign and had never even visited her constituency!

As well, the electorate’s move away from the Bloc was not a result of that party’s miscues. Gilles Duceppe ran his usual decent campaign, made no gaffes, nor did any scandals attach to the party.

So what happened?

Clearly, Quebecois en masse decided they still needed to continue punishing the Liberals, thanks to the sponsorship scandal, and simply couldn’t countenance voting for the Conservatives, whom they perceive to be an anglophone, western-based party, the successor to the Reform Party, and home to many whose ancestors may have been members of the ultra-Protestant Orange Order. But why not, then, continue sending Blocistes back to Ottawa?

As a minority within Canada, in federal elections Quebecois vote, first and foremost, on the basis of protecting their culture and powers within Confederation.

The Bloc and NDP had platforms that were, as usual, fairly similar. Both are left-of-centre parties whose domestic agendas are not all that different.

And while the Bloc is sovereigntist, the NDP’s attitude towards Quebec nationalism is far more friendly than that of the Conservatives and Liberals.

The party, for example, supports legislation that would extend Quebec’s French Language Charter to employees in the province who work in sectors covered under federal law.

And their interim leader, Nycole Turmel, is a former member of the Bloc.

Fearing the continued advances of the Harper Conservatives, Quebecois felt the need to seek allies outside Quebec who could oppose the Tories.

The Bloc could not provide that, but the NDP, as a national party, fit the bill – this time around, anyhow.

Locked in Ethnic and Territorial Disputes

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

The collapse of Soviet power in the southern Caucasus and central Asia in the 1990s opened up a political space for the re-emergence of the nationalist ideology known as pan-Turkism.

This political movement, which originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had as its goal the political union of all Turkic-speaking peoples in the Ottoman lands, the Crimea and other parts of tsarist Russia, eastern Turkestan in western China, and parts of Iran and Afghanistan.

Some 170 million people speak a Turkic language, with the largest, Turkish, used by about 85 million people.

The Turkic world encompasses a huge portion of southeastern Europe and central Asia. Today there are six independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as Turkey itself.

There are also several Turkic national entities in the Russian Federation, including the Altai Republic, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Tatarstan, and Tuva.

The Crimean Tatars inhabit the Ukrainian peninsula that borders the Black Sea, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China is home to the Uighurs, another Turkic people.

A main "fault line" between the Turkic Muslim and pro-Russian Christian peoples has always run through the southern Caucasus.

The nation of Armenia has been at odds with its Muslim Turkic neighbours for centuries and hence welcomed Russian rule in the region.

It has suffered whenever the Russians and Turks were at war.

During World War I, the Armenians within the Turkish Ottoman Empire were accused of aiding Russia, and in 1915 upwards of one million of them were massacred.

Between 1918 and 1920, Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan were sovereign countries, and fought an indecisive war over territory. But both soon became part of the new Communist-ruled Soviet Union.

During the Soviet period, Armenia and Azerbaijan were full Soviet republics. But the 4,400-square- kilometre area known as Nagorno-Karabakh, though inhabited mainly by Armenians, became an autonomous oblast (region) within the borders of Azerbaijan, cut off from Armenia proper.

By the late 1980s, as Soviet rule in the Caucasus disintegrated, and the two countries once again became independent states, old enmities resurfaced.

There were massacres of Armenians in the Azeri capital, Baku, and killings of Azeris in Yerevan in Armenia.

In 1991, Azerbaijan unilaterally abolished the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh. In response, the Armenians in the enclave declared their independence.

Full-scale fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan ensued, and by the time a cease-fire ended major hostilities in 1994, the Armenians were in control of almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as a considerable amount of Azerbaijani territory outside the enclave.

More than 30,000 people were killed in the fighting from 1992 to 1994. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azeris from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh were displaced as a result of the conflict.

The war also drew in the two major powers in the region, Russia and Turkey. In 1993, as Armenia's forces were routing the Azeris, Turkey demanded that the Armenians pull out of Azerbaijani territory, and thousands of Turkish troops were sent to the border between Turkey and Armenia. Russian in response warned Turkey against any military involvement.

Though there has been little fighting since 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan are still technically at war and the two countries have no formal diplomatic relations.

Turkey imposed a blockade on Armenia in 1993, resulting in a total shutdown of land and air communications between the two countries; they also have no formal diplomatic relations.

In May 2009 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Azeri parliament that Turkey and Azerbaijan were "one nation with two states." He added that there would be no normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations unless "the occupation of Azerbaijani territory ends."

Armenia's Defence Minister Seyran Ohanian in turn stated in January 2010 that defence fortifications have been beefed up significantly in recent years. "We are maintaining the balance of forces vis-à-vis the Azerbaijani armed forces."

The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is one of several "frozen" conflicts in the cultural zone separating the Turkic peoples of the Caucasus from their neighbours, and Nagorno-Karabakh remains a de facto independent republic of some 140,000 people, protected by Armenia.

Cypress Could Be New Flashpoint

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

The island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean has been a bone of contention between Greece and Turkey for decades.

Independent from Great Britain since 1960, for the past 37 years it has been divided between a self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state recognized only by its patron Turkey, and a southern Republic of Cyprus, governed by Greek Cypriots, which claims sovereignty over the entire island.

The capital, Nicosia, is also partitioned between the two entities. But as far as the United Nations and other international bodies are concerned, the Greek Cypriot government is the legitimate ruler of the island.

Indeed, the Greek Cypriot state has since 2004 been a member of the European Union, despite its unwillingness to grant concessions to the Turkish population in the north, and so keeping the island split in two.

Now, thanks to Turkey’s new assertiveness, the already troubled island is being dragged into the Middle East conflict.

The Greek Cypriot government has licensed U.S.-based Noble Energy Inc. to search for oil and gas near recently-discovered Israeli offshore fields that contain more than 450 billion cubic metres of natural gas. The distance by sea between Cyprus and Israel is about 200 kilometres.

Israel and the Republic of Cyprus last December signed an agreement defining their maritime border, thus allowing them both to search for energy sources in the eastern Mediterranean. Noble Energy began exploratory drilling for offshore oil and gas deposits off Cyprus in mid-September.

In response, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Dervis Eroglu, the president of the Turkish Cypriot state, describing this as a “provocation,” in late September signed a deal paving the way for their own offshore drilling.

Turkey maintains the Greek Cypriots are disregarding Turkish Cypriot rights and it sent a warship-escorted research vessel, the Koka Piri Reis, to also look for gas off Cyprus. Ankara claims the natural resources around Cyprus belong to both the Turkish and Greek parts of the island.

But President Dimitris Christofias of the Republic of Cyprus in the south has insisted that exploration will continue despite Turkey’s strong opposition.

He asserted the right to search for potential deposits inside the Republic’s exclusive economic zone is non-negotiable and any foreign meddling is unacceptable. (His government does not, of course, recognize any such rights for the Turkish Republic in the north.)

Greece and Israel, too, argue the Turkish vessel has no business being in the area.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou urged “restraint” by all countries in the region, but added Greece supports the Greek Cypriot activities.

Greece also hopes Israel will want to export its own natural gas resources to European markets via a pipeline running through Greek Cyprus to Greece, and that the Turks will not interfere.

Just to make sure, Athens and Jerusalem signed a mutual defence pact in September.

Still, Israeli diplomats worry the Turkish threat could prove dangerous.

“Israel and Cyprus reached agreement dividing the water between the two of them for gas drilling,” Alon Liel, a former ambassador to Turkey remarked.

He worried that things could escalate.

“If Israel and Turkey come to face each other in the Eastern Mediterranean,” it may even require direct American involvement, according to Sinan Ulgen, director of EDAM, a center for economics and foreign policy studies in Istanbul. Then what?
 

Positioning to be Major Player 

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian


Apart from becoming a significant force in the Middle East, Turkey is trying to extend its sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus and central Asia. These are nations that have ethnic, historical, linguistic and religious bonds with Turkey.

Turkey has very close ties to Azerbaijan, with which it shares a border. Trade between the two countries has increased significantly and Turkish companies are the largest investors in Azerbaijan. Turkey's trade with the country amounted to about $2.5 billion last year.

Azerbaijan is an oil-producing country, and Turkey would like to become a key energy hub for the transportation of energy resources to Europe.

In 2005 the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which connects the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, was completed. Turkey is now the main outlet for westbound Azeri oil.

In December 2010, Turkey and Azerbaijan signed a strategically important mutual defence treaty.

Kazakhstan, too, is an important economic partner of Turkey and Turkish companies have been investing in areas such as food, beverages, oil industries, banking, retailing and tourism. Trade between Kazakhstan and Turkey amounted to $2 billion in 2010.

Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that Kazakhstan is Turkey's most important political and economic partner in Central Asia: "Our bilateral relations continue to develop in a stable course, driven by the momentum arising from the mutual strong will of both countries."

During Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev's visit to Turkey in October 2009, a Strategic Partnership Treaty was signed between the two.

Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow has reaffirmed Turkey's crucial place in the shaping of his country's foreign policy. He has stated that Turkmenistan and Turkey were united through historical and cultural ties.

Turkmenistan has one of the world's largest natural gas reserves and Turkey is interested in transporting the country's gas to Europe. Some 100 agreements and protocols have been concluded between Ankara and Ashgabat, and a joint Turkish-Turkmen commission for economic cooperation was formed in 2008. Turkish trade with Turkmenistan amounted to $2 billion last year.

Earlier this year, Turkmenistan held an international forum in Ashgabat where the cultural heritage of the Turkic peoples was celebrated with an extensive program that included scientific conferences, concerts, films, demonstrations and exhibitions.

Turkish relations with Uzbekistan, the most populous of the central Asian states, have been more rocky, due to Ankara's concern over human rights abuses and a less favourable economic climate in that country.

The Tashkent government was angry at Turkey for supporting the call for an international investigation of a massacre in the city of Andijan, when troops fired into a crowd of protestors in May 2005, killing at least several hundred.

Still, Turkey is the one of the most important direct investors in Uzbekistan, and trade between the two nations amounted to $1 billion in 2010.

Prime Minister Erdogan visited Tajikistan in 2003 and trade and political relations have increased since then. Turkey has provided assistance for the development and democratization of Tajikistan, a very poor and fragile country, but its role remains limited. Two-way trade in 2010 amounted to $360 million.

Another central Asian state in trouble is Kyrgyzstan, where violence in the south of the country in April 2010 left up to 2,000 dead and forced 400,000 from their homes.

Earlier this year, though, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Almazbek Sharshenovich Atambayev met with top officials while attending the Turkey-Kyrgyzstan Trade and Investment Forum organised by Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists in Ankara.

"This is exactly the time to invest," Atambayev told them. "We are brothers and friends. We have a history we are proud of. Our future will also be common and glorious." But trade between Turkey and Kyrgyzstan remains relatively small, amounting to $160 million in 2010.

In January 2010 Turkey hosted a "Summit of Friendship and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia," held in Istanbul, and attended by numerous diplomats from countries around the world. Turkey is clearly staking out its claim to becoming a major power.

Is Turkey Creating an ‘Ottosphere’ in Middle East?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Turkey is becoming a major player in the Middle East, as the Arab world, once mainly ruled by Ottoman emperors, continues to be convulsed by political earthquakes.

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads the moderately Islamic Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party), has come out in favour of full Palestinian UN membership and warned Israel against any further attacks on Hamas-ruled Gaza.

He recently told Arab leaders that recognition of a Palestinian state was “not an option, but an obligation.”

The Turkish leader said that Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May 2010, which killed eight Turks and a Turkish American on board a Turkish ship, occurred in international waters and was “cause for war,” but added that his country had showed “patience” and refrained from taking any action.

After Israel refused to apologize, Erdogan withdrew Turkey’s ambassador, suspended military co-operation with Israel, and froze all trade ties with the Jewish state.

He described Israel as “the main threat to regional peace.”

Erdogan told al-Jazeera television that “my brothers in Gaza are waiting for me. I too long for Gaza. Sooner or later, if God allows it, I will go to Gaza.”

He also vowed to send the Turkish navy to escort Gaza-bound aid ships in the future.

“Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean,” he told an audience in Tunis earlier this month, “and you’ll be seeing Turkish warships in this sea.”

He stated that Israel would be prevented from exploiting the eastern Mediterranean’s oil and gas reserves on its own.

Erdogan received a tumultuous welcome when he visited Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in support of their new and still shaky post-dictatorial political systems.

“These countries are trying to transform into democratic system from autocratic systems,” he declared.

“We have to lend them a helping hand in their efforts.”

He hailed the advent of democracy in Libya and the “memory of martyrs who sacrificed themselves for their country and their religion.”

Turkey hopes to encourage cooperation, investments, and trade with these countries as well.

Erdogan has also warned Bashar al-Assad’s repressive Syrian government in Damascus “that there is no regime that can go against the will of the people. This is what those who oppress the people of Syria should realize.”

A century ago, almost the entire Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks were a major force in the world.

Some analysts are calling Erdogan’s policies an attempt to create a new “Ottosphere” in the region.

There’s no doubt that he’s trying to do just that.

Does One Have to Return to British Symbolism to be Conservative

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

As my surname suggests, my forbearers are not from the British Isles. In fact, my family arrived in Canada in 1948.

But I did grow up in the pre-Trudeauvian Dominion of Canada, with its Red Ensign flag and little crowns above the numerals on highway signs in many parts of the country.

At our elementary school, we sang “God Save the Queen” as well as “O Canada” every morning.

Yes, much of our history and, more importantly, political institutions originate in the United Kingdom, and most Canadians outside of Quebec in the past had little problem with Canada seeing itself as an offspring of Great Britain.

From the 1970s on, however, there was a conscious attempt, partly to accommodate nationalists in Quebec, to eradicate much of the symbolism of Canada’s connection to Britain.

The Queen, though still the official head of state of Canada, was stealthily relegated to a position of less importance than the governor general, who became the de facto head of the country. The Commonwealth connection, too, was minimized.

Much of this was the work of prime ministers who originated in Quebec – with very brief interludes, they governed the country between 1968 and 2006.

We now have what is basically an English Canadian government, headed by a prime minister from anglophone Alberta.

Stephen Harper is working to bring back a sense of history for Canadians, after decades of emphasis on supposed Canadian values such as medicare and multiculturalism.

This is part of his effort to promote a more conservative national identity. Liberals often saw the period before the 1960s as a kind of “dark ages,” in which bigotry and racism flourished.

But is restoring the label “Royal” to the Canadian navy and air force not perhaps a step too far? It had its place in the past but Canada is no longer that country. Millions of us without ties to Britain had no trouble with its disappearance.

The Harper government also ordered all of Canada’s 260 embassies, high commissions, consulates and trade offices to display a portrait of the Queen.

Harper’s decisions have angered many Canadian nationalists who say the prime minister is out of touch with modern-day Canada. And it certainly won’t help him in Quebec.

What’s next, the Union Jack alongside the Maple Leaf? Surely being a conservative needn’t require a return to a British past which in any case is no longer really relevant to either country.

Turning the clock back like this isn’t conservative, it’s reactionary.

The Lasting Impact of the Iran-Iraq War
                               
Henry Srebrnik, [Toronto] Jewish Tribune 

This coming Sept. 22 marks the date, in 1980, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran.

Taking advantage of the political turmoil in his much larger neighbour following the downfall of Iran’s Shah and his replacement by Ayatollah Khomeini’s theocratic regime, the Iraqi dictator thought he could score a quick victory and grab the oil rich, Arab-majority province of Khuzestan.
Instead, the struggle became a war of attrition that lasted eight years – it became the longest conventional conflict of the twentieth century – and cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

Oil production was affected as each country targeted the other’s oil terminals. Both nations also attacked oil tankers and merchant ships in the Persian Gulf, including those of neutral nations, in an effort to deprive the opponent of trade.

Although the war terminated in a military stalemate on Aug. 20, 1988 – Khomeini said he “drank the cup of poison” when he accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations – Iran was the effective victor, having withstood the Iraqi aggression with far less modern weaponry than Iraq possessed.

Iran also had fought without any allies, while Iraq was supported financially by the Arab Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, was supplied with arms by the Soviet Union, and even received covert help from the United States.

As we know, Saddam went on to defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, after having conquered Kuwait, and was finally eliminated altogether by the American invasion of 2003.

Iran, on the other hand, despite Khomeini’s death in 1989 and some internal opposition in recent years, has gone from strength to strength, geopolitically.

Today, ironically, the post-Saddam Iraqi government, led by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is, like the Iranians, a Shi’a Muslim, has become quite close to Tehran. (Saddam’s Ba’ath Party regime was Sunni-dominated and oppressed the country’s Shi’a majority.)

The even more radical Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army commands the loyalty of followers in the poorer areas of Baghdad and in the country’s south, is believed to have spent part of the last four years studying to be an ayatollah in Iran.

For these reasons, some analysts call Iran the true beneficiary of the American defeat of Saddam.

Iran has also extended its influence in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon – where Hezbollah is its political proxy – and Syria.

When Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, at the end of August called on the government in Damascus to recognize its people’s “legitimate” demands, this probably had more effect on Bashar al-Assad than anything Washington says.

But Salehi also warned NATO against any temptation to intervene in Syria. “Syria is the front-runner in Middle Eastern resistance” to Israel and NATO “cannot intimidate this country with an attack.” Tehran still considers Assad’s survival a key strategic goal. Iran relies on Syria to help facilitate arming and financing Hezbollah as well as Hamas.

And despite denials by current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is clearly in the process of developing a nuclear capability, and makes no bones about threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

“Recognizing the Palestinian state is not the last goal. It is only one step forward towards liberating the whole of Palestine,” Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Tehran University on Aug. 26, ‘International al-Quds Day,’ according to The Jerusalem Post.

In August 1979, Khomeini declared the liberation of Jerusalem (al-Quds in Arabic) a religious duty to all Muslims.

In language reminiscent of Nazi rhetoric, Ahmadinejad declared that “the Zionist regime is a centre of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilize again and hurt everyone.”

Three decades after the start of the Middle East’s longest and deadliest 20th century war, Iran has definitely become a major regional power.

Iran is a Regional Power in the Middle East

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Despite some internal opposition in recent years, the theocratic regime in Iran, founded by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, has gone from strength to strength, geopolitically One of its main enemies, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is no more, defeated by the American invasion in 2003. The post-Saddam Iraqi government, led by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki , who is, like the Iranians, a Shi’a Muslim, has become quite close to Tehran.

Iran has also extended its influence elsewhere in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon – where Hezbollah is its political proxy – and Syria.

When Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, at the end of August called on the government in Damascus to recognize its people’s “legitimate” demands, this probably had more effect on Bashar al-Assad than anything Washington says.

But Salehi also warned NATO against any temptation to intervene in Syria. “Syria is the front-runner in Middle Eastern resistance” to Israel, so NATO should not be allowed to “intimidate this country with an attack.”

Tehran still considers Assad’s survival a key strategic goal. Iran relies on Syria to help facilitate arming and financing Hezbollah as well as Hamas in Gaza.

And despite denials by current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is clearly in the process of developing a nuclear capability. Indeed, the country is taking advantage of the unrest in the Arab world, which is distracting the international community, to accelerate its efforts.

In June, Iran unveiled underground silos that would make its missiles less vulnerable to attack. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed “increasing concerns” about research by Iranian scientists on nuclear warhead design.

Tehran also makes no bones about threatening to wipe Israel off the map. Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Tehran University on August 26 that “The Zionist regime is a center of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilize again and hurt everyone.”

Israel is a very small state, little more than 22,000 square kilometres in area. And to compound the problem, over 70 per cent of its population, and its ports, airports, refining capacities and industry are located along the coastal plain, 260 kilometres long from north to south and some 17 kilometres deep. One nuclear weapon could destroy most of the country.

Iran is aware that, if it attacked Israel, the Israelis, who have many nuclear weapons, would counter-attack, observes political analyst Hirsh Goodman, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, in his new book The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival.

“But with a population 10 times that of Israel and a country 75 times as large, Iran reckons that no matter how harsh the punishment meted out in return for attacking Israel, it would be mauled, not killed.”

A nuclear Iran, it is now recognized, “is not Israel’s problem alone,” writes Goodman. “It possesses missiles that bring the Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey, Europe and Russia all within reach. A nuclear Iran would be transformative, a country not easily gone to war against, and one that will have considerably more power on the regional stage.”

Indeed, Turkey announced earlier this month that it would install a new radar system designed by the United States. It came as Ankara has become more critical of Iran due to Tehran’s continued support of the Syrian government.

Iran has become a power to be reckoned with.

Three Down, Two to Go? Apparently Not

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

There are five Arab countries along the Mediterranean in North Africa: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, known collectively as the Maghreb.

In three of them, dictators have effectively been eliminated. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, and now Moammar Gadhafi, are history.

However, rulers in Algeria and Morocco, both former French possessions, are hanging on.

Algeria, a huge state that borders Libya and Tunisia to its east, has had a particularly violent history. From 1954 to 1962, the National Liberation Front (FLN) fought a war against the country’s French overlords, gaining independence after the deaths of as many as one million people.

As well, about one million European settlers, the so-called pied-noirs, of mostly French descent, who accounted for some 10 percent of the population, fled to France.

The FLN proclaimed a socialist state, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, and the country’s first president was the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella. He was overthrown by his defence minister, Houari Boumédienne, in 1965.

Boumédienne turned the country into a military dictatorship, allowing the FLN to effectively wither away. After his death in 1978, his successor, another officer, Chadli Bendjedid, took over as president.

By the early 1990s there was massive unrest in Algeria, so Bendjedid allowed the formation of political parties, and scheduled elections for 1991. However, when it became clear that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), founded two years earlier, was poised to win, the army mounted a coup and cancelled the elections.

A civil war followed in which between 160,000 and 200,000 people were killed over the next decade.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in office since 1999, continued repressive emergency rule. However, in January opposition parties, unions, and human rights organisations, inspired by events in neighbouring Tunisia, began to spearhead popular demonstrations against the regime.

Forced to accommodate their demands, Bouteflika lifted political restrictions in February. He also announced new measures to create jobs.

While sporadic opposition to the regime continues to flare up, at the moment no serious challenge to the government seems to be in the offing.

The ancient kingdom of Morocco, divided between and ruled as a protectorate by France and Spain between 1912 and 1956, has been far more stable than Algeria.

The Alaouite dynasty, which has ruled Morocco since the seventeenth century,traces its ancestry back to the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and so has far more legitimacy than most Arab rulers.

The current king, Muhammad VI, who ascended to the throne in 1999, has strengthened the economy and improved Morocco’s human rights record. Still, in February thousands of Moroccans rallied in the capital, Rabat, to demand that he give up some of his powers.

In June, the king announced a series of constitutional reforms, giving the country’s prime minister and parliament more executive authority. Elections are now scheduled for November.

While some protests have continued, organized by the February 20 Movement, this seems to have satisfied most Moroccans.

For the moment, therefore, the revolutions that have toppled other autocrats in the Arab world have bypassed these two nations.

Tribal Revenge a Worry in Post-Gadhafi Libya

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

If a man is known by the company he keeps, it doesn’t say much for Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who will apparently allow his new best friend, Moammar Gadhafi, to seek asylum in his country.

I suspect even Chávez’s other comrade, Fidel Castro, is embarrassed.

After an inconclusive six months of battle, the opposition in Libya is finally on the verge of defeating the mad tyrant of Tripoli.

But now the real work will begin.

Libya is little more than a notional state.

Most people’s loyalty is first and foremost to their own tribal group. Many Libyans have traditionally relied on tribal connections more than civil society for justice and security.

In recent weeks, anti-Gadhafi insurgents in Libya’s western mountains and around Misrata have attacked civilians whose tribes supported Colonel Gadhafi, looting mountain villages and emptying a civilian neighbourhood.

The city of Yafran, southwest of Tripoli, has become the easternmost outpost of a cultural and linguistic reawakening of the Amazigh, the Berber people long oppressed by the Gadhafi regime.

Amazigh cultural and political leaders have framed a set of public demands for a post-Gadhafi Libya.

As part of their vision, their native language, Tamazight, will have an equal standing with Arabic.

But at the same time, the houses in Yafran of the Mashaashia, a tribe whose members supported the Gadhafi dictatorship, were burned.

There were similar reports of arson against the tribe in other towns in the region.

As well, General Abdul Fattah Younes, one of the commanders of the opposition forces, was murdered by some rebels, apparently in revenge for his previous role as Gadhafi’s security chief.

In response, the head of his tribe, the Obeidi, threatened to retaliate against those responsible, setting off a crisis in the opposition’s ranks.

Members of the tribes close to Colonel Gadhafi, such as his own tribe, the Qaddafa, or the larger Maghraha, may face the greatest danger from “tribal revenge,” George Joffe, a specialist on North African politics at Cambridge University, told the New York Times.

Reprisals have been a source of embarrassment for the Transitional National Council, the de facto rebel authority, but with much of Libya close to anarchy, there is little they can do about it.

Meanwhile in Syria, another dictator fights to hold on to power.

Will Bashar al-Assad be the next to go?

It’s going to get crowded in Caracas.

Woodstock and America, Then and Now


Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Most people have at some time heard these lyrics, from the Crosby, Stills, Nash &Young song “Woodstock”:

“By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong,
And everywhere there was song and celebration.”

The year was 1969, of course. It was one of the highs – Americans walked on the moon – and lows – the war in Vietnam was dividing the country.

The three-day concert, which has become an iconic event in the history of the 1960s, was held at Max Yasgur’s 240-hectare dairy farm near the little town of White Lake, New York, in the Catskill Mountains, from August 15 to August 18.

I was in the Catskills earlier this month, in the town of Woodstock. It has long been a gathering place for artists, musicians, and writers, even before the music festival – which was actually held some 65 kilometres away -- made the name famous. (It was originally to be held in Woodstock itself but the venue there proved too small.)

Yet how different America seems four decades later. The hippies and flower children -- now in their sixties! -- have given way to “millennials,” younger people who wonder if they’ll ever have a decent career. The euphoria of the 1960s is now a memory, replaced by economic crisis and paranoia about terrorism.

There’s no need to reiterate the depressing data regarding debt, deficits, and dismal unemployment numbers. Things remain dire and there seems little government nor business can do about it.

Concerns over security have made it almost impossible to walk into many buildings or board airplanes without waiting in lines to be searched. Gone are the days when it was as easy to get onto a plane as to hop on a bus.

In New York City, I spoke to friends and relatives – doctors, professors, real estate agents, journalists -- about America’s woes. All were pessimistic. They were all liberal Democrats, as well, and feared Barack Obama might lose next year’s presidential election to a Republican.

“Woodstock,” it turns out, was in retrospect not “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” but a fleeting moment in American history.

Things are not looking good in America. But as my mother once said, at least “New York is New York.”

The State that Gets No Respect

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Later this month I'll be visiting New York and New Jersey.

Everybody loves New York, of course. But New Jersey probably gets more bad press, and endures more ridicule in popular culture, than any other American state.

Who has not at times chuckled at the uncouth accents (think "Joyzee"), cringed while watching movies and television shows about the Mob, or gasped when inhaling the terrible pollution on the Turnpike when driving in the northern part of the state.

Although two National Football League teams, the Giants and the Jets, play in New Jersey's Meadowlands sports complex in East Rutherford, both call themselves New York teams!

The many jokes about the state perpetuate a stereotype of New Jerseyites as classless yahoos.

If Connecticut, which borders New York to the east, is perceived as the home of New England gentility, then New Jersey, on the western side of the Hudson River, is the place where the rough and tumble working class aspires to grab a piece of the American dream.

That's not easy to do these days. Some of the state's cities, such as Newark, Paterson and Trenton, are amongst the poorest in the nation, rife with crime, corruption and all manner of social pathologies. They are urban wastelands.

The state's unemployment rate is close to 10 per cent. Conservative Republican Governor Chris Christie has dealt with the financial crisis by slashing budgets and taking on public sector unions.

But there's another side to the Garden State (which actually has vast farms covered with vegetables and floral products and is also home to Ivy League Princeton University). It is exemplified by people like Bruce Springsteen, the populist singer who voices the frustrations of America's forgotten underclass in songs like "Born to Run" and "Born in the U.S.A."

One of the beach towns along the Atlantic, Asbury Park, is home to the Stone Pony, which was a starting point for many musicians, including Springsteen, his wife Patty Scialfa, and Jon Bon Jovi. It's become something of a pilgrimage site for fans of rock and roll.

"It is a place that is important -- not just to us, but to the world," then New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman said on Memorial Day weekend in 2000.

In 1976 casino gambling was legalized in Atlantic City as a way to restore the fortunes of the famous resort, which had become a rather shabby place, experiencing a long period of economic decline.

Although the city revived considerably after the 1970s, with many new hotels and casinos built - it became the Las Vegas of the east -- the current recession has again hit the city hard. The unemployment rate stands at almost 13 per cent.

Poor New Jersey —- it gets no respect.